Night Owl Cards

(*measure, measure, measure, trace, trace, trace*) (*snip, snip, snip, snip*) ... Oh, hi there. You've caught me in the middle of making my own brand of baseball cards! With the recent news that Panini has acquired the license to produce NBA cards, and the fact that Topps' MLB license expires in a year, I figured, why not? I'll try my hand at some cards. I could win the lottery, um, three times, and buy an exclusive deal, right? So I have to start planning. I'm going to call my card company "Lower Level," and I'll be starting with the kids' market. We have to get those kids hooked first! My first product is going to be called "Letters." As in, "Lower Level Letters," or "LLL" for short. Catchy, no? Here is an example of one of the cards: That's right! All of the cards are die-cuts! This is the "U" card. It is my homage to Upper Deck. Because Upper Deck X was my inspiration. Here is the "T" card an...

I'm not dumb enough to consider "Work Hard, Get Cards" an insert, but think about it for a minute: It's not part of the base set. It's randomly inserted in packs; you don't get one in every pack. That's the definition of an insert, right? OK, enough foolishness. This is where I count down the inserts/subset cards I got in the various packs I purchased since November. Fourteen separate packs yielded what I'm about to show, and it's a pretty depressing lot. I like the last card, and that's about it. What follows pretty much sums up what you got in retail packs in 2008. Or at least what I got. These cards and the rest, listed along the sidebar, go to the winner of the contest. You can get the rules and enter here . Off we go: 11. Mickey Mantle, Home Run History, No. 430, Topps Chrome. This is a waste of valuable chrome. Get these out of the chrome set. 10. Dennis Kucinich, presidential campaign subset, Topps Series I. You see correctly; I ranke...

A big thank you to everyone who voted for the "best card set" and "worst card set" of 2008. As you can see by the results, there is little question about what people thought was the best and the worst of the past year. At least among people who visit this blog anyway. Topps Allen & Ginter was the best card set by such a wide margin that not only did it win "best set" by 13 votes over its closest competitor, but it was the only set listed that was not voted the "worst set" of 2008. I have to say I agree. If you're collecting and you hate Allen & Ginter, I really have no idea what your collecting motives are. Upper Deck X was picked as the "worst set" of 2008, also by a wide margin, 14 votes more than the "next worst," Upper Deck Spectrum (Upper Deck has a number of pointless brands out there. Personally, I'd throw Artifacts in there, too, and SP Authentic). I noted that not as many people voted in the "wor...